Wo außer Oslo wird in Norwegen noch Bukmol gesprochen?

Bukmol var et fint kallenavn på bokmål synes jeg 🙂

Bokmål is a Written language. It’s not spoken anywhere. The dialect of Oslo is similar to the entire south east.

Bokmål is, as the name suggests (literally „book language“), a **written standard**. In Norway, people speak dialects, and even though some dialects are closer to Bokmål than others, no one follows the formal grammar and spelling rules strictly when they speak.

Here is an overview of how this works in practice:

**1. The Central East Country (Østlandet)**

This is the area where the spoken language is **closest** to Bokmål. This specifically applies to:

• **Oslo** and the surrounding areas.

• Cities like **Drammen, Moss, and Hamar**.

• In these areas, people often use what we call „Standard East Norwegian,“ which is the dialect that has had the greatest influence on how Bokmål is written today.

**2. „Refined“ Urban Dialects**

In many major cities (such as Bergen, Trondheim, and Stavanger), there are variations of the dialect known as **refined urban speech** (fint bymål). Historically, these versions have been closer to the written language (Dano-Norwegian/Bokmål) than the local rural dialects.

**3. Media and Official Contexts**

You often hear something that sounds like „pure Bokmål“ in:

• **News broadcasts** (NRK and TV2).

• **Theater stages** (especially at Nationaltheatret).

• **Audiobooks**, where the narrator often uses standardized East Norwegian for clarity.

**An Important Distinction:**

While Bokmål dominates in the cities and in Eastern Norway, **Nynorsk** stands strong as a written language in Western Norway, Møre og Romsdal, and parts of Innlandet and Telemark. But again: those residents speak their own dialects (like Sunnmørsk or Sogning); they don’t literally speak „Nynorsk.“

No one in Oslo speaks bokmå. Bokmål is not a dialect, it is a written standard. Oslo has its own dialect.

(Somehow some people from Oslo believe that they speak normalised Norwegian while the rest speaks dialects, but the only acceptable response to such claims is to tell them go fuck themselves)

I’m just learning Norwegian and all the teachers say that bookmol is mandatory and it’s popular in Oslo, although I know different dialects in different parts of Norway. 🙏🏻

That’s hilarious.

Funny thing is that grammatically speaking, Bokmål is closer to the western dialects in many ways, while sounding more like the eastern ones. Nynorsk is grammatically closer to the eastern dialects, while sounding more like the western ones.

It’s odd.

Personally speaking, Nynorsk can go take shit.

r/norsk